Muscle Shoals Meets the 70s rewind

Part 2: Got me on my knees times two

Over the course of two nights and four sets, this past weekend’s Muscle Shoals Meets the 70s show at Florence’s historic Shoals Theatre gifted us with 51 songs via 56 live performances. I’m no math major but from where I sat it was roughly six total hours of live music. Whew! That’s what I’m talking about, y’all. There was very little overlap from night to night, but we were gifted with five "twice as nice" performances. It’s day four post-MSM weekend and I’m still counting my lucky stars that "Layla" had me on my knees both nights.

Listen, I'm not the girl who peeks at Christmas gifts. No judgement of those who do such things, but that's just not me. I love surprises BUT … like many of you, I knew the setlists going into our marathon Muscle Shoals Meets 70s weekend and I was really looking forward to more than a few of the performances. I was eager to be surprised – does that make sense? Guitar greats Mitch Mann and Scott Todd with Corey Jones on slide guitar doing Layla ranked pretty high on my “surprise me” list and Lord help me, the guys did not disappoint – in fact, they surprised me out of the stratosphere.

Friday night, we were only one song deep in the setlist when Mitch Mann stepped to the front of the stage in all his 70s psychedelic polyester shirt glory (which, according to my notes, “matched his guitar” lol) and tore into Layla’s iconic opening riff. A Cheshire cat smile spread across my face that I’m sure could be seen from the moon. I thought, “Oh, yeah. This is going to be fun.” I felt pure uninhibited joy, y’all.

I love hearing Mitch sing and seeing him play guitar. I love watching Scott Todd literally smile ear-to-ear the entire time he’s playing guitar. Joy is contagious, friends. These two worms along with Clint Bailey on keys, Steve Vickery on bass, Michael Dillon Currington on drums, the Shoals Sisters singing backup, and Cissy Guin on tambourine are impressive but then to have Corey Jones playing slide guitar? It was an extraordinarily next-level rendition of Layla. Period. There was one point where Corey was in the shadows standing between Mitch and Scott and he was just playing his heart and soul on his guitar. I saw Scott look over to Mitch with a nod as if to say, “Wow, this is our lives.” Same. So very same.

I loved everything about both performances of Layla but there was just something in the air night one … guitar god energy was all around us Friday night, friends. You could feel it, right? Seriously, night one was as if Duane Allman was playing puppet master from the heavens. Speaking of Duane Allman, shout out to the guy sitting behind me who reminded his seatmate that the one and only “Skydog” played slide guitar on this Derek and the Dominos megahit, not Eric Clapton. If I've said it once, I've said it 10 million times: I love my hometown. Isn't it cool how just living in the Shoals is like being part of a live-action music history lesson?

Rumor has it that Duane was “one take” on his Layla parts, too. You know, every live performance is in essence “one take” and I think that is so cool. Even with the most stringent production and all the rehearsal time in the world, no two performances are ever the same. I like it that way. Yeah. Getting a double dose of the Fiddleworms and friends’ version of Layla this past weekend was such a treat. Yum, yum, yum!

More to come … stay tuned for a play-by-play rewind of the two-night Muscle Shoals Meets the 70s philanthropic rocking extravaganza.

Dig Worms, friends.

*Photo credit: Angel DeAnn Pilati